


The Theme Is: Guilt

by witchway



Category: Iron Man (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, College Student Peter Parker, M/M, Tony Feels, Tony Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Trigger Warning: Quentin Beck Exists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:41:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27770932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchway/pseuds/witchway
Summary: Hello Guilt, my old friend,I've come to talk to you agaaaaaaaaaaain........
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark, Starker - Relationship, Tony Stark/Peter Parker
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	1. The Theme

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Itfeelssogoodmrstark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itfeelssogoodmrstark/gifts).



> This is dedicated to the late @Von-Gelmini, because this story, like so many of my stories, wound up being published because he said I should publish it.
> 
> In fact, come to think of it, I only started writing Starker because of him.
> 
> I miss him.
> 
> If you miss him, and would like to leave some goodbye words for his family, you may do that here:
> 
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/vongelminithestoryteller

Guilty was the key word.

Guilty, because he should _not_ have had that much to drink when he found out the kid was going to be at the party.

Guilty, because he had drunk so much BECAUSE the kid had been at the party.

Guilty, because offering to give the kid a ride in his limo had been a shameless attempt to keep Peter with him, even if it was only for a few more minutes. Guilty because, when he found out where the kid WANTED to go, all he wanted to do was refuse. 

Guilty, because when Happy buzzed in from the driver’s seat with the question “Heavy traffic Mr. Stark, alternate route?” and Tony had answered “Yeah, probably” that had been code for “ETA 10 minutes, need more time?” and “yes give us another half hour.” And now Happy would drive randomly for the next thirty minutes. Because _even he_ knew what Tony wanted to do with Peter in the back of his limo.

Guilty because this “It Will Get Better I Promise” hug should have ended several minutes ago, and yet here he was with his arm still around Peter’s shoulders, their heads very close.

Guilty, because all he wanted to do with the boy sitting next to him with his head bowed looking close to tears was pull him even closer and never, never let him go.

“I just thought I’d grow up to be better… to be smarter…” Peter said, his voice hitching. 

“Hey, none of that,” Tony said, cupping Peter’s face in his hand and lifting the boy’s face up enough to look into his eyes. Then letting the guilt pull his hand away. “You _are_ smarter… you’re the smartest guy I know. Except for me, obviously. And you’re are lightyears ahead of Quentin. The reason you can’t figure out his complicated emotional demands is not because _you’re_ not smart enough, it’s because _he’s_ too damn complicated. Does he even know what _he_ wants?” Tony posited, until guilt made his mouth feel too heavy to move. Guilt because he really, really didn’t want to be talking about Peter’s boyfriend right now. Guilt because all he _really_ wanted to do was make Quentin Beck disappear. 

“He keeps telling me what to do, he keeps explaining it, but I just can’t seem to do it right…”

“Is that because he keeps changing the rules? Keeps moving the goalpost? Making it impossible to win? ‘Cause I know a little something about that…” Tony muttered. _Trying_ to keep his hand from actively caressing the bit of Peter’s shoulder where it was resting. Trying to keep his thumb from occasionally brushing against Peter’s cheek. Trying. Failing.

“You _got_ to be careful, kid. You can’t keep hitting your head against that brick wall and then blaming yourself that you haven’t knocked it down yet. You’ll give yourself brain damage. Next think you’ll know he’ll die in a car wreck and you’ll spend the next 10 years of your life refusing to try _anything_ because you know you’ll never succeed.”

“Oh, Tony I’m sorry…” Peter said, suddenly distracted from his own problems and hugging Tony close again. As if the guilt couldn’t get any worse.

“Seriously, Pete, don’t make me take you back there. Happy will drive you back to your dorm, or you can crash at the penthouse. But _don’t_ go back tonight. You both need some space. He’s got you doubting everything you do, now. I mean, I don’t know how anyone could hypnotize you into thinking you were _not_ smart…”

“That’s just it! _Every_ time I think I figured it out, every time I think I figured the combination out, I get _something_ wrong! And I did _everything_ right this time! I gave him plenty of warning, because he doesn’t like surprises. I gave him the information right after work, but _not_ right at dinner, because he can’t handle more stress at work and he can’t handle it during a meal. I gave it to him in person because he hates finding out by phone. I told exactly when I was leaving, where I was going, and now I’m home in plenty of time and _he’s_ still…” Peter gestured weakly at his phone, laying facedown on the seat. Tony hadn’t gotten to see the message Peter’s boyfriend sent, but he had seen the look on Peter’s face when he got it. Couldn’t un-see it.

“You keep trying to find the pattern, but maybe the pattern _is_ chaos. You keep trying to find the combination, but maybe he isn’t a combination lock. Maybe he’s just a person who needs you to be constantly focused on keeping him happy, so you never have time to look up and realize ‘Why am I working so hard to make this man happy?’”

“He’s done a lot for me,” Peter said in a tiny voice.

“You’ve done a lot for him.” 

“But that’s… relationships take work, don’t they?”

He was looking up into Tony’s face, now, his eyes glistening, his mouth only inches away from Tony’s own. And the guilt was making him sick.

“I’m not the one to ask,” he said suddenly, pulling away and leaning his head back on the seat (but keeping his arm firmly around Peter’s shoulders, squeezing him when Peter lay his head on Tony’s shoulder.) “But it seems to me, you’re doing all the work. And in the meantime you’re calling yourself ‘stupid’ and ‘selfish’ and that’s just… weird. In addition to generally being the smartest person in the room, you know, after I leave, you are _always_ the most compassionate person in the room. You’ve got us _all_ beat in that department, kid, hands down. Ask anybody. Anyone who can’t see how tenderhearted you are is… lying.” There, he said it. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep his contempt for Peter’s boyfriend out of his voice…

…and then, suddenly, he decided to stop trying. He sat up, looked Peter full in the face and decided his guilt could go to some alien planet and rot there.

“Peter Parker, you are quite a catch. You have an angel’s face, and angel’s heart and…” That was probably enough. He probably shouldn’t be describing Peter’s body right now. Or how much he thought about Peter’s body. Especially after dark.

“…and you _have_ to say that,” Peter said with a little smile. Because you’re my…”

There was a moment of silence between them. Tony looked into Peter’s eyes, startled for a moment to see Peter looking directly at his mouth. 

“I’m you’re what?” Tony whispered, suddenly terrified at the answer.

“You’re my mentor,” Peter suddenly, wrapping his arms around Tony’s neck and hugging him fiercely.

Tony hugged him back.

Guilt was an old friend. An old, familiar friend. An old friend that had come back to stay.


	2. Disgusting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Learning to live with the guilt... has its benefits.

Maybe it was a _good_ thing, the fact that Peter had called him. And it certainly had to be a good thing, didn’t it? That Peter had specifically asked that Happy drive them around in circles while they talked in the back of the limo. That was a _good_ thing, wasn’t it? Didn’t that mean something?

Although apparently all it meant was Peter in tears again, leaning against his shoulder with Tony’s arm around him and that old guilt weighing down on him as usual.

He ordered Happy to find ice cream. If they were going to feel guilty and miserable, at least there should be ice cream.

* * *

“Honestly, kid, you’ve got to ask yourself if it’s worth all this work. Like I told you before, you seem to be the only one working,” Tony said as causally as he could. He reached for the moist towelettes to clean up their hands and faces. Luckily Peter didn’t ask why he kept so many cleaning supplies in the back of the limo. Endlessly they drove around New York City, alternatively talking or staring out the window. Happy had instructions to simply drive until Tony told him to take Peter home.

For weeks Tony had carried his guilt over his double life with Peter like a weight on his chest. It wasn’t okay, really, to be answering Peter’s texts or taking Peter’s phone calls like a legitimate friend and mentor by day, knowing damn well he’d be touching himself while scrolling through his pictures of Peter at night. When Peter sent Tony a selfie, Tony always answered immediately with one himself. Always a foot, always propped up somewhere with his location in the background. They sent these to each other daily. What Peter did with Tony’s picture he had no idea. What Tony did with Peter’s pictures, well, no one needed to know. And if Tony spent hours every night searching porn sites both new and old for boys that looked vaguely like Peter from behind, well, his systems were so secure even Peter himself couldn’t hack in to find out what he was doing. Besides, he only put those vids on for background noise. It was Peter’s _face_ he needed to see.

But in the end, that just meant Tony was living a double life. And Peter, with his secret identity, was doing the exact same thing. 

Which was why Tony jumped at the chance to pick Peter up in the limo because he “just needed a friend to talk to.” Yes, his guilt lay on his chest like a heavy weight. But how was that a problem? He was _the_ Iron Man. He could carry a lot heavier.

“Well, there’s no more work to do now anyway,” Peter was saying sadly, looking out the window. “We’re officially broken up. So what’s there to work on?”

“From where I’m standing, that makes perfect sense,” Tony said quietly, laying his head back on the seat, watching Peter watching New York City as it passed by.

As they drove, Tony found himself amazed at how easy this was becoming. As he watched Peter watched the city and he thought about right and wrong. He had been _very_ steadfast. Had practiced more self-restraint in the past few weeks than he ever had in his life. Had done nothing to Quentin Beck, either legal or illegal. Had sat back and watched Peter make his own decisions and tried to be encouraging. Very little advice and absolutely no interference. 

Maybe, this guilt wasn’t such a burden after all.

Yes, Tony’s had dreams. Had dreams about tender touches in candlelit bedrooms and gentle exploration that would go on for hours finally culminating in sweet lovemaking that lasted until sunrise. Had long lists of lovely spots in exotic locations where the two of them would be completely alone to discover each other, to teach, to learn. But those wouldn’t be the first dreams Tony had given up on. They were only a few out of so many. And wasn’t he used to it by now?

And he wasn’t getting his hopes up now that Quentin was, officially, gone. Because everything about Peter’s behavior told Tony it wasn’t permanent, and might actually just be a power play on Beck’s part. 

And, apparently, it was working. Peter was turning to him in tears.

“Come‘mere,” Tony said with a sigh, putting his arm around the boy’s shoulders and pulling him into another hug. The truth was he didn’t mind being a shoulder to cry on. He didn’t deserve nearly as much. He held Peter close and was thankful for what he could get.

Nuzzling his face against Peter’s hair, it occurred to him suddenly that he _didn’t_ feel guilty anymore. Yes, he had lovingly plotted sexual encounters that played out in detail with Fantasy Peter in his head, but it didn’t interfere at all with his ability to be a friend to Real Life Peter right now. He sighed, finding a strange sort of contentment in that fact, and patiently waited for Peter to speak.

“I’m sorry,” Peter said finally.

“Don’t apologize,” Tony said sincerely. “I realized something. Every project has stages, and the lab is there for you at every stage. Your life has stages. I’m here for you at this one, and I’ll be here for you at the next one. That’s what friends are for.”

“But I’m not growing out of this one, that’s the problem,” Peter said sniffling, scrubbing the tears away. “I’m not growing out of anything. That’s… the _big_ problem. Tony, I need to tell you something really personal. Do you mind?”

Tony sat up a bit, suddenly intrigued.

Peter looked in his face and tried to speak. He faltered, then tried again.

“The spiderbite,” he managed. Tony leaned closer. He thought he understood everything about Peter’s transformation after the mutant spider, but this seemed to be something new. Peter was whispering to him as if conveying some great secret.

“After the spiderbite I quit… _growing_. I’m not… normal,” he said, gesturing vaguely at his chest, or perhaps at his whole body. “Quentin put up with it for as long as he could, until he just couldn’t anymore… and now he’s gone and there’s nobody… I can’t…” 

“Breathe,” Tony said gently when Peter could speak anymore. “Deep breaths, kid. We’ve got all the time in the world. What are we talking about? I thought I knew everything about the spiderbite. Tell me what I don’t know.”

“My body just _quit_ …” Peter said, trying to breathe calmly while he spoke, looking steadfastly at Tony’s shirt collar. “Just quit producing testosterone. My muscle mass increased, I mean all kinds of things increased, but the testosterone… quit. No more body hair. Voice pitch? Never getting any lower. And there’s other things… Tony…”

The tears again. Tony’s chest tightened because he had seen that look on Peter’s face before, although he couldn’t quite place it.

“Tony what do you do when you’re just… when you’re just _disgusting_?” Peter asked. His hands trembled as he gestured vaguely at his own body, and suddenly Tony remembered where he had seen that look before. It was a look of abject revulsion. He knew it quite well. He had seen it in the mirror on several occasions.

He didn’t hesitate. He reached up and unbuttoned his own shirt. He watched Peter’s eyes follow his progress as he unbuttoned it down to the waist and pulled it free. Then he watched Peter’s eyes as the boy took it in. The heavy scaring. The white puckered flesh outlining exactly where the arc reactor had been. The uneven patches of grey body hair that grew where it could. 

He let Peter take it in. Then he took Peter’s hand in his and placed it squarely in the center of his chest.

“The first thing you do, is you _get away from the person_ who is telling you you’re disgusting,” he said softly. 

Peter looked into his eyes, surprised. Then his eyes flickered down to Tony’s mouth, just as they had before. This time, he leaned in.

“Tony?” he whispered, and Tony brought his face in very close as he waited for Peter’s decision.

“Can we… could… maybe…” He swallowed hard and tried again. “Could we go back to the tower?”

Tony found himself smiling. “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours?”

“Yeah,” Peter sighed, smiling a little himself. He parted his lips willingly for Tony’s kiss. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is complete and the last chapter will be posted next week. Subscribe so you won't miss it.


	3. Things That Might Be True

Tony might have actually been drifting off to sleep – if such a thing were possible – when Peter’s phone chimed. It was Quentin’s tone. Tony wasn’t supposed to know these things, but he knew.

Peter hadn’t seemed to have heard. He was still asleep, looking angelic (as usual) with one hand still resting on Tony’s chest. They had been laying that 

way as evening turned into night, laying close together, touching and talking, trading compliments, trading secrets.

Even now, the lights were still on. Tony intended to call to Friday to lower them, but that would mean speaking, and speaking would wake the sleeping angel. Tony preferred to watch. Watch and wonder.

To say that Tony had planned for this evening would be… well it would be brutally honest which is why Tony never _planned_ to plan it at all. But he had. Had stood in the mirror and adjusted the light levels until he felt he could comfortably take his shirt off with Peter in the room (but just to make his fantasies more realistic, not because he had ever planned to _get_ Peter here, oh no.) But when the moment of truth came, the lights stayed on. Because that’s what Peter wanted.

And what Peter wanted was to ask a million questions, and never, not in his wildest dreams, had Tony imagined that he could stay so _calm_ about it all. But under Peter’s eyes, under his scrutiny (and under his fingertips) all of it melted away. The part of his body Pepper could never stand to look at, all that which Tony had politely and dutifully kept covered pre- and post-arc reactor, what he had politely hidden from lovers past and present, _all_ of that was suddenly laid bear for Peter to examine with the lights on. Because that’s what Peter wanted.

And the lights _stayed_ on. Tony was expecting a slightly more hesitant game of “I’ll Show You Mine If.” But the body Peter was in tears over in the limo was no longer an issue in Tony’s arms. He willingly shed whatever article of clothing Tony mentioned without hesitation, then returned to his careful examination of Tony’s body.

“How did anyone convince you _this_ was disgusting,” Tony asked gently, but now Peter only looked down at himself and giggled.

“Just no hair anywhere,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe puberty will catch up with me eventually.” He might have other things to say but he appeared to become distracted by Tony’s mouth on the multiple places lacking hair.

“Let Go And Let Peter” was the theme for the night, although, in the end, the younger man clearly expected Tony to take the lead, and so Tony did.

“Let me make love to you, Peter,” he had whispered, just as he had a thousand times in his dreams – but never once, not even once, could he have imagined the radiant smile that lit up Peter’s entire face when he had said it. Or the delighted way the boy had stammered “Yeah… yeah, okay.”

The sounds he coaxed out of the boy that night were nothing short of heavenly, and mentally he made a note to delete _every_ porn vid from every file he had (he had developed quite a library, carefully sorted into categories: Peter-like, Almost Peter-like, Vaguely Peter-like, Close to Peter-like etc.) They were all going to go. Because not one of them came close.

He coaxed two orgasms out of the boy that night. Once with his mouth. The second time moving gently inside the boy’s body with long, slow strokes. 

Peter was mortified when he broke the headboard. 

When the boy started to apologize (the way Tony KNEW he would) Tony kissed him silent before he could speak.

“Oh baby I knew… I mean I _thought_ that it would… I mean I hoped…” He found himself grinning helplessly, almost giggling at the absurdity of it all. Was he _really_ going to admit to…

“You’ve been _thinking_ about this?” Peter ask in a tiny voice. Tiny, adorable.

“…maybe…”

Afterward they had lay close to each other, relaxing in each other’s arms. Peter’s fingers tracing the scars on Tony’s chest and remembered more questions he’d forgotten to ask. He knew about the surgeries in details Tony hadn’t discussed since those endless doctor-days. He mentioned pictures of the surgery that hadn’t been available to the public… then blushed beautifully when he was forced to admit he had hacked into some places that he shouldn’t have when he was younger.

“Why you lookin’ at naked pictures of me, baby?” Tony said with a teasing smile. 

“I… _might_ have been obsessed with you for a very long time,” was the adorable answer. Tony stroked his eyelids closed and kissed them tenderly (all while making mental notes to erase his large stash of Compound-security photos he had of Peter in the pool.)

They talked for a while afterward. It seemed like they would talk all night… until Tony started pressing him for information about what they had started talking about in the limo. Only then did Peter claim sleepiness.

“It’s _not_ just the lack of hair,” he said finally, miserably. “It’s my voice. It’s not getting any lower… and I don’t think it’s going to.”

“So, I’m hearing… voice training. In the old days they were called ‘elocution lessons.’ But I still don’t get…

“ _Prolactin_ , Tony.” Peter said, irritation showing in his voice. “When you’re a kid, you have a lot of prolactin in your brain, so you cry a lot. You grow up, you get more testosterone, and that inhibits crying. But not me. I cry all the damn time. I mean it was every day for a while…”

Tony sat up on one elbow. He stroked one lock of hair back and chose his words very, very carefully.

“You’re talking about crying jags… Peter did this… did this start after you started at Columbia?”

“Oh no, I was in seventh heaven when I started at Columbia. Couldn’t sleep I was so damn happy. It was like kid-in-a-candy-shop happy, like _all the time_ … no… I guess the crying jags started about six months ago…”

Tony opened his mouth to point out that Peter had also started dating Quentin six months ago, then closed it quickly. Officially they had only been dating for four months, and Tony wasn’t supposed to know the real date. But there were a lot of things Tony wasn’t supposed to know.

“I had crying jags at MIT,” Tony said finally. (Peter was looking up at him, so he had to say something.) “The year I was supposed to graduate. Crying jags can be about changes in life – even good changes. Or just plain-old stress…”

“You had crying jags?” Peter asked, in angelic surprise. But everything Peter did was angelic. “What did you do?”

“Coke. I don’t suggest it.”

“I don’t know if it would have an effect on me – alcohol doesn’t. Believe me I tried.”

“Peter… you know Dr. Cho was going to be a psychiatrist before she changed majors and wound up where she is now?”

“What?”

“I’m trying to tell you that Dr. Cho is team therapist. Big secret - I’m Ietting you in on it. We _all_ talk to her sooner or later. Most of us have Savior Syndrome and we _all_ have Messiah Complexes. If you’re stressed out, you should think about talking to her…” But Peter was far more interested in cuddling and sleeping by then, and who was Tony to argue?

But not now. Quentin’s tone was vibrating Peter’s phone, this was the sixth time, which meant it was the 3rd message, and suddenly Tony couldn’t take his eyes off of it.

“Baby?” he whispered finally, but only because Peter seemed to be waking up.

“…muhony?” Peter mumbled, looking around him, trying to remember where he was. “Do I need to leave?”

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” Tony growled, his arms tightening around the boy, surprising himself. He tried to cover it with a joke. “I’ll have Happy take you home tomorrow in the limo. Let you do the ‘walk of shame’ in style.

“But your phone is talking to you,” he said regretfully, even as Peter snuggled back into his arms in relief. 

Watching Peter try to retrieve his phone without leaving Tony’s arms left Tony grinning like a fool. They had moved away from the wet spot and further to the middle of his Alaskan King bed. Peter even tried to web the phone to him, but he had shed his shooters with the rest of his clothing hours ago. Finally he stretched out to get the phone with only their legs intertwined. He didn’t quite make it, but Tony tried to help by keeping a firm grip on his waist. And if he took some time to admire the view, well, should he feel guilty about that.

He jumped a bit when Peter flung the phone out the room without even looking at the screen. He braced himself for the crash, although the crash never came. Peter hadn’t taken aim, but had successfully thrown the device out the door and down the hallway where it landed harmlessly on the carpet in the living room. Tony gaped even as the boy snuggled back into his arms, mumbling.

“Wait… _what_? What did you say?”

“I said I’m _done_ with it. It’s a waste of time.”

“But… _what_? I didn’t catch the first part.”

“I said it’s a _waste of time_. I’m finished playing that game… never taking him at his word and always trying to listen around what he was _saying_ to figure out what he _meant_ and then feeling guilty because I should have just taken him at his word and then feeling guilty because I got that wrong too. I’m _done_. I’m _done_ feeling guilty. Guilt is a waste of time.”

“Guilt… is a waste of time?”

“That’s my new moto. I’m making it my new lockscreen. S’gonna be my new password. I’m tattooing it on my wrist.”

“ _Can_ you be tattooed?”

“Nope. Need vibranium needles. Gonna hurt a _lot_ …”

“ _Guilt is a waste of time_ ,” Tony repeated to himself. Peter seemed to be asleep, and now Tony was beginning to wonder if falling asleep in each other’s arms was actually possible. He nuzzled his face into the boy’s hair and repeated the words to himself.

He wondered if they were true.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a 3-chapter story, and will be posted before the year is out.
> 
> Please subscribe so you don't miss it!
> 
> \----------------------------------------  
> This is me on Tumblr:
> 
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thestarkerisobvious
> 
> Come by and say hi. You don't have to feel guilty at all.


End file.
